


Broken Bottles in the Sand

by mnemosyne



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8547154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne/pseuds/mnemosyne
Summary: Teenage pilots and their force sensitive sweethearts. In which a young Jess Pava meets a young Ben Solo and nobody can ever predict the future.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/gifts).



_She is four years old the first time she goes into space. Her mother holds her on her lap, wraps her calloused hands around her daughters tiny ones and allows the little girl to feel the warm plastic of the freighter controls beneath her fingers. It would be intoxicating if, at four, she knew what intoxicating meant. Her eyes are wide as they gaze through the viewscreen, at the expanse of stars and nothing. Her mother’s chest vibrates slightly with the echo of her own giggles of delight._

“ _Like a duck to water,” her father says, arms resting on the back of the seat behind them. “She’ll be as good as her mother one day.”_

_The chair dips slightly as he leans down to kiss them both, and Jess wrinkles her nose. “Stop moving me.” Her mother laughs again, rests her chin on the top of Jess’ head, hair wisping ticklish against the side of the little girl’s face. “She needs to concentrate on her job,” her mother agrees, tone light and deliberately serious._

“ _You’re doing wonderfully,” her father replies. Jess is too wrapped up in the promise of the galaxy to hear a word._


	2. Prologue

 

“This is boring.”

Yvann’s voice crackled over the commlink and Jess forced herself to suppress her sigh of irritation. In the background, she could hear the drumming of her friend’s fingers against the metal clipboard he was using to take the inventory of their cargo.

“This is mandatory,” she reminded him. “You’ll be doing it a lot more after we graduate. Aren’t you going into business?”

“No chance,” Yvann replied, affably. “Where I’m going is back to Ganthel.”

“What’s in Ganthel?”

“Literally anything but this.” There was a tinny edge to his laughter; Jess made a mental note to check the wiring in her cockpit. Yvann wasn’t wrong, particularly. She’d lost count of the number of times she had made this particular hop, ferrying supplies between Hosnian Prime and orbiting ships. The most eventful thing that had happened on any of them was when Karric had spilled her drink on her console, wiping out the dashboard. Her frantic attempts at repair had lead the small incident into a larger one and it had been up to Jess then to interface with her ship, lead the older girl back to base slowly and carefully for repairs, meeting the steady litany of worried swearing with calm reassurances. She didn’t mind; Karric prided herself on her perfect test scores and Jess had navigated enough invitations to society dinners and elaborate garden parties at her home to know exactly from whom her friend had inherited her myriad anxieties. She wasn’t about to add to them herself.

Since then though, there had been nothing, not even the blinking of a red light to indicate some system malfunction that she could have distracted herself by fixing. The run was clear, guarded, and safe, perfect for young cadets to make their first unsupervised flights. Privately, Jess thought it was an easy way for the New Republic to get cheap labour, but her father had called that view uncharitable when she expressed it at home.

Hosnian Prime loomed large in her viewscreen. Jess straightened in her seat. She pressed the comlink again.

“Yvann, we’re almost back. Head on up.”

The boy’s rangy figure slouched into the cockpit to join her; only off a dark look did he bother to pull the safety gear on around him, rolling his eyes as he did so.

“You worry too much, Pava,” he told her.

“One of us has to,” she replied. “Arriving in five.”

Her mother had told her that the last minutes of a flight were always the most dangerous and she’d had the scars to prove it. Jess’ practised fingers danced over her console, flipping the final flight checks. A quick call back to the base confirmed their entry time. Even Yvann was quiet as she began to bring the plane closer towards home, though his yawn suggested it was less about concern for a job safely done and more because he couldn’t bring himself to pay the slightest bit of attention. Truth be told, Jess liked it better that way.

They had just broken the atmosphere when a dark shape shot past them, swooping in far too close, and certainly far above regulation speed. Only sharp reflexes kept Jess from too jerking hard at the controls, though she could feel the freighter list slightly at the small movement she hadn’t managed to stop herself making.

“What the-”

“ _Stupid_ ,” she called out, to the small craft that had startled them. She slowed slightly, watching its movements warily. As they continued their descent, it began to loop in front of them, darting up through the clouds. For a few moments, it continued its wild trajectory, before spinning off again into the distance, a tight, skillful corkscrew of movement that made the freighter suddenly feel like steering a Ronto.

“Neat,” said Yvann.

“Shut up,” muttered Jess.

It turned out that nobody at control knew anything about it and even fewer seemed particularly interested in finding out who the owner of the craft was. It wasn’t illegal, they pointed out, just inadvisable. If the craft came back, they assured her insincerely, they would speak with the pilot and suggest that they were more careful in future. Jess smiled back just as flat, tucked her flight helmet under one arm and stalked off towards the showers.

Her hair was still wet when she left, the warm Hosnian sun doing little to dry the damp patches forming at the shoulder of her jacket. Yvann was long gone, shouting something about a date, disappearing before Jess had even emerged from the wash block. She’d finished the final report alone and her supervisor had not mentioned the boy’s absence, though a heavy tap on the datapad told her that it had been noted. With nothing else to be done, there was no reason for Jess to stay, and the looming figure of Ylenia Valkur at the edge of the bike garage threatened to find herself volunteered for a job she had no interest in doing whilst the day was so clear. She skirted the garages, ducking through a break in the link fence and around the back of a supply store. If she cut through towards the lake here, she would be back home in less than an hour. After spending so many of them in a cramped seat, she relished the idea of stretching her legs.

She had barely begun walking when the noise of snapping twigs caused her to stop. One hand rested carefully at her hip.

“Sorry! Sorry.” Just a boy. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace and Jess relaxed slightly. He was taller than she was, and if she hadn’t recognised his face from the Galactic News holos, she would have known who he was from the droid that was stopped at his feet. This was Senator Organa’s son, there were unmistakeable traces of her in the boy’s dark brown eyes, though the uncertain expression on his face was not one she could ever remember seeing on his mother’s.

“Hi,” she said. The droid chirruped pleasantly back at her.

“I’m Ben,” said the boy, then paused before snapping out his hand, stiffly, as if he was trying to figure out what the protocol was for introducing himself to unknown girls wandering the countryside. She shook it, unsurprised when he let go abruptly.

“I know,” she admitted, “I’ve seen you on the holonet.”

“Right.” His lips pressed together thinly for a moment, a shadow crossing his face. He brightened. “And you’re Jessika Pava, aren’t you?”

Jess rose an eyebrow.

“I asked. At the-” He waved his hand at the direction she had come, and ducked his head slightly, studying her expression. “I don’t mean to – I wasn’t being – I just needed to find out who you were.”

Jess smiled at him tightly. “Can I ask why?” Ben looked embarrassed.

“I wanted to apologise for startling you.” He frowned. “I assume I startled you. Your descent was perfect before I-” He raised his hand, sliced it through the air, and grimaced. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“That was you in the scout?”

Ben nodded.

“You’re an idiot,” Jess told him. He flushed slightly and nodded.

“I wasn’t being mindful of my surroundings,” he said.

“Nope,” Jess agreed.

“I get that way when I fly sometimes,” he shrugged, slightly too casually. “I’m sorry. It had been a long time.”

There was a wistfulness in his tone that Jess could well recognise; its echo could be heard in the way her mother spoke about her younger years. His voice sounded old, though she knew he couldn’t have been so much older than she was, and his eyes grew distant, like he was reliving a memory she couldn’t share. Without thinking she reached out, pressed her fingers against his arm. He blinked, looking down at her hand, then back up to meet her gaze.

“You and me both,” she told him. “It’s peaceful up there.”

He nodded, slowly, eyes not leaving hers. “Yes,” he said, “it is.”

 

 ***

 

“This is never yours.”

Ben grinned at her, pride radiating off him in waves. He stood back as she ran her hands over the sleek lines of the small ship. It was an old model, to be sure, but there was no mistaking the care that had gone into keeping it in working order.

“It is.”

Jess whistled softly. “Must be nice having rich and famous parents,” she said, and immediately regretted it. She knew better than that. Ben shook his head as she opened her mouth.

“There are… perks,” he said, lightly, though the smile at his mouth didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Would you like to go up?”

Jess pressed her nose against the window of the cockpit. “Ben Solo, I am insulted that you even thought to ask that question.”

There could be no denying that Ben was a skilled pilot. He guided the small through the valley almost lazily, skimming turns and treetops like he had been doing it all his life. Jess itched to take hold of the controls, to see how the plane handled for herself, but there was a part of her that was enjoying watching the display. It had been a long time since she had gone up with a pilot that was so comfortable in that seat. The valley whipped by; she couldn’t tell how fast they were going, but she didn’t much care. There was a serenity on Ben’s face that told her she was perfectly safe, and she barely blinked as the cliff-face rushed towards them. With a calm that belied the risk, Ben pulled the plane up, climbing sharply before they could hit the rock in front of them. The engine protested at the manoeuvre, and somewhere behind them, his astromech chirruped crossly. Jess couldn’t help but laugh, her stomach fluttering with a sensation she hadn’t felt since she was a child. This was flying.

They stopped a little way outside the city, landing in a clearing. The droid dropped unceremoniously from the small aircraft and rolled away, grumbling as they went. Jess waved away Ben’s outstretched hand, clambered out with slightly less grace than she might have liked. His hand remained in the air for a moment, before he dropped it and hopped down to the ground; she was slightly gratified to see that his long limbs had done little for his own balance either.

The grass was thick here, dotted with pockets of mushrooms. Jess prodded one experimentally with her foot, grimaced as it crumbled at the gentle pressure.

“I think they’re poisonous,” Ben said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t touch them.”

“You know all the most romantic places,” Jess said. Ben’s face reddened.

“I didn’t-”

She grinned. “I know. You just wanted to show me the ship.”

“Yes.” He looked at her, head askance. “If that... was what you wanted.”

The droid was still grumbling to himself a little way away.

“What I don’t want is to eat surrounded by poison,” Jess said, and took his hand. “Come on.”

There didn’t seem to be an end to the scattered clumps of toxic fungus. With every step, Jess could feel Ben’s frustration grow. It was almost enough to make her laugh, though the rumbling of her stomach tempered her amusement. The ground was still soft from the rains the previous week, and she could feel herself sinking slightly with each step; on more than one occasion she stopped, watching as a riversnake slithered by beneath her feet.

“I thought it would be nicer than this,” Ben said at last. “C-3P0 seemed to think it was a popular spot.”

“For what, exactly?”

Ben stopped, planting his feet firmly on the ground. The afternoon sun was already beginning to catch against his cheekbones.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” he said, darkly. “I’m starting to think that droid actually does have a sense of humour.”

In the end, they compromised, hauling themselves up on a cluster of large boulders, the rock rough but warm beneath them. There was just enough space to sit, as long as they didn’t mind their shoulders bumping every time they reached into the small hamper, and Jess could certainly think of worse things. Many of them had twined round her ankle on the way. Jess brushed a spider away from her feet, flicking it from her hand to land in the grass.

“When did you start flying?” Ben asked. The pastry that was already halfway in Jess’ mouth stilled. She looked at him over the top of it, eyes wide and chewed once.

“Sorry, sorry, I- Finish.” Ben’s face twisted into a grimace of chagrin. Jess grinned as she tore a piece off, swallowing.

“My mother was a pilot,” she said. “She taught me, when I was little.”

“Did she fight?”

“Did she…?” _Oh._ Jess shook her head. “No, she wasn’t a soldier. Just a-” Smuggler. “Cargo pilot. Ran supplies.”

“She must be very skilled."

“She was. She doesn’t fly anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I think she just doesn’t have time now,” Jess lied. Lying felt odd in her mouth, and she didn’t have to look at Ben’s face to know that he had noticed her discomfort. She shrugged, continuing in the same cheery tone. “Maybe she’d change her mind if she saw your bird though.”

Ben was looking at her with a thoughtful expression; the intensity of it scratched under her skin. Ducking her head, Jess took another bite of her pastry and didn’t return it. Ever so gently, she could feel the warmth of his arm pressing against her, like he was testing, checking, making sure she would not move away.

“ _Parents_ ,” he offered, after a long moment. Jess laughed through crumbs and leaned back into him.

“Parents,” she agreed.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

She had known it was him the moment the alarm tripped, even before the brief waterfall of apologies directed towards her mother. There was distinctly maternal schadenfreude in the tone that had called up to Jess about her handsome young man waiting for her. Jess rolled her eyes and took care to walk steadily down the stairs, deliberately pressing her foot against the squeaking step, the one that set her mother’s teeth on edge, the one that no matter how hard anyone tried, would never stop making horrible noises for more than a few days at a time.

Ben looked terrible. A high flush of colour on his cheeks, like he had spent the last several hours trying not to shout or cry – or perhaps he had been doing both. His fingers were curling, uncurling, an accordion of unspoken emotion.

“Hey,” Jess said, and ignored her mother’s eyebrow waggle as took his hand in hers. The movement paused, cold pressed against her palm. “Going for a walk?”

Ben nodded, looking up at Jess’ mother. Jess tugged him forwards. “She’s fine with it.”

 The night-flowers were out, their scent mingling with the harsher smell of scorched metal. If you looked closely, you could still see the jagged scars of laser blasts. She wondered what it was like where Ben lived; for all the time they had spent together, he had not taken her there. The one time she had seen his mother, in the main square, Ben had shrunk away, muttering something about ice cream and other blatant excuse foodstuffs. “She’s your mother,” Jess had said then, “that’s who I’d like to meet.”

“Some time,” Ben had replied. She had never been sure if it had been a promise or a description.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, until they had passed the last row of homes, skirting the edges of one of the great airfields. Overhead, a squadron of starfighters passed, coasting smoothly, unhurried through the sky. Ben’s hand tightened in hers.

“I’m being sent away,” he blurted, and started when she stopped. She turned, forcing him to face her.

“What?”

“To study.” She could see from this close that his lower lip was bruised, worried between teeth. “Away from things.”

“You don’t seem all that excited.”

“I am.”

Jess punched him lightly in the chest. He frowned. “Liar,” she told him.

He shrugged again, and began to move away.

“No,” Jess held firm, and did not let go of his hand. His fingers were curled between hers, comfortable, familiar; he had the same callouses she did, the same strength; she let his own movement turn him to face her, and did not step into the space that existed between them, arms almost stretched out. Not far behind the pair stretched the long wire wall of the training grounds; lights in the distance belied the emptiness. He looked down at her then, something soft in his face, as if he was realising for the first time how much taller he was than her.

“I suppose staying here to study would attract too much attention,” he said. “It will be better if we’re not disturbed.”

“That’s probably true, Senator Organa,” said Jess. Ben’s eyebrow raised, she squeezed his hand. “Now what does Ben think? Why would you have to _leave_? And you do realise you're being horribly cryptic. Why can't I know?”

Ben laughed, low and sad. His hand moved up to her wrist, and he leaned closer in, the scent of warm metal and fresh cut grass filling the air. She stepped closer, just stopping short of wrapping her arms around his waist. “I want to tell you. I _will_ tell you. Soon. Unfortunately, I think my mother is right. She is usually right.” His lips quirked. “Don’t tell her I said that.” Jess’ heart thumped heavily in her chest; she could feel a suspicious prickling in her eyes that she refused to let take hold.

“But I’ll miss you,” he added. Jess shut her eyes, breathed deep.

“Did you know,” she began, then scrunched her nose, because of course he did, they’d spoken about it at length only days previously. She continued regardless. “That mum wants me to go solo on a run soon? I’ll be graduated and done with school, and the people she works for need all the help they can get these days. Rich people and their wines and expensive chocolate.” She let her fingers drum out a tight tattoo on his waist.

“You’ll be far too busy doing whatever mysterious thing it is that you’re doing,” she said, more brightly than she meant. “And so will I. We’ll barely think about each other at all.”

She kissed him.

“Liar,” he said, when they broke part.

 It was more than an hour before they had returned. The lights of Jess’ home were dark already, her mother would be up early in the morning. Ben stayed only long enough to see Jess back to her door; she rolled her eyes at him in the darkness, then kissed his cheek.

 “See you soon,” she said, voice little above a whisper for the sleeping woman whose window was just above them. “You know where _I’ll_ be at least.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

_It’s funny what you remember when the big news happens, Jess thinks years later. Sometimes it’s everything, all at once, sometimes it’s nothing at all. Jess can’t remember at all the morning she found out she had been accepted into the academy. Her mother can, and her father, and uncle Gwirr, who lives three buildings away and always smelled strongly of pittins, but Jess doesn’t recall a thing beyond the sound of an excited voice on the phone._

_It’s different when she hears the news about Leia Organa._

_The air smells like burnt sugar from the Chalactan place on the corner, her gloves are scratching against the skin of her wrists. There’s a crack in the plastic of the window, white-green splintering over the side of the screen. The woman on the news’ face is grim, bright pink lips set into an unsmiling expression that makes her look somehow much older than she has ever looked before._

_Jess remembers everything of the morning she discovers that Darth Vader is Ben Solo’s grandfather._

The viewscreen in her room was small, wires still exposed behind it where she’d not quite been able to fix all the damage. Her mother hadn’t wanted her to have one of her own, but Jess had found this one anyway, broken down in someone’s old junk. She had held it up to her mother, pleading, and eventually the woman had caved, and told her that if she could get it working, she would be allowed to hook it up to the network. Jess had worked diligently until she had come up with something that almost resembled a machine and her mother had been forced to agree that it was, if nothing else, functional.

She hadn’t spoken to Ben much since he’d left; in truth, there had been times when she had been too busy to even think much about him. There had been little time for romance, her studies had seen to that. Even Yvann, ever popular with the other students, had stopped his endless stream of dinners and dates, and was more often seen tapping away on his datapad as he walked around, his lithe grace more often employed in navigating streets of strangers than on the dance floor.

Still, her stomach fluttered every time she had seen his ID on the messages left in a way she would absolutely never admit to. He’d talked about his training, oblique sentences that never quite held up when she thought about them later, and about his uncle, and the grounds. He rarely spoke much about the other students she knew were there, and when she asked about them, his responses were non-committal. She told him about her new job, her friends, the planes she was determined to fly one day, and ridiculous jokes that she had heard. Once, he had sent her something back that contained the most absurdly vulgar shaggy dog story. Jess considered it something of a personal achievement.

This time though, when she flicked the button to record, there were no jokes, no stories, no streams of vehicle specifications bouncing around excitement. Her fingers pressed the screen.

“It’s ok,” she said to the recorder. “It doesn’t change _you_.”

The moment she shut off the message, she knew that there would not be an answer.

***

Leia Organa was somehow everything that Jess had always thought her to be and twice over. She was much shorter than Jess, and absolutely diminutive next to Jess’ mother, yet somehow, standing in their small kitchen, deep in conversation with Jess’ mother, she seemed to fill the room. It had been several weeks since the truth had come out, since the galaxy learned the truth of Senator Organa’s origins, and now, with the Senator’s gaze turned firmly towards her, Jess had never found something less believable. She had not expected the warmth that danced behind those dark eyes, nor the creases at her mouth that belied a propensity to smile, even though her expression was serious now.

“Darling,” said Annika, “I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.”

“I’ve wanted to meet you for some time,” the senator said, “ever since I managed to winkle your name out of my son.”

Jess coughed slightly, embarrassed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, senator,” she said, and the woman’s eyes crinkled at the formality.

“I think Nika’s daughter earned the privilege of my first name a long time ago,” she said. “Please call me Leia.”

Jess nodded, though privately, the notion seemed impossible. She wondered now if this was why Ben had never introduced them, this feeling of awe and respect and the strange overwhelming disconcert of being in the presence of a story told years ago. From the flicker of amusement in her mother’s eyes, she knows that she hasn’t quite been able to keep the sentiment from her face.

“Relax, Jessika,” Leia said. “I’m not here to talk about Ben. Though it’s nice to meet a,” she paused, delicately, “friend?”

Jess picked at a fingernail. “Yes,” she said, “but I haven’t heard from him.” A shadow passed over Leia’s face, and for a moment, Jess thought she could see the parent beneath. The woman took a small breath, face calming back into inscrutability.

“There’s something I have been discussing with your mother.” She leaned forwards a little, as if even in this room she expected to be overheard, and did not want to be. “I find myself lately in need of both pilots and friends.” She glanced at Annika, whose arms were folded now, tight across her chest. “I’d hoped Nika might join me, but she says she no longer flies.”

“Anything else you need,” murmured Annika. Leia nodded, reaching out to rest her hand on other woman’s elbow. “So now I’m asking you.”

Jess glanced at her mother, then back at the senator. It felt strange, a cool tension twisting in the air. She thought about the way Ben’s mouth tightened when he talked about his parents, about the sharp pain through excitement when he had told her he was leaving.

“All right,” she said out loud. “I’m listening.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

_She is twenty-four years old the first time a Resistance mission goes terribly wrong. The ship controls have always felt familiar beneath her fingers, almost an extension of her own body. But now, now, spiralling down and down and down and down to the planet’s surface, they feel alien, unresponsive where they once danced at her touch. The smell of burning fills the cockpit, heat harsh on her skin against the flight helmet. She doesn’t panic, even as the ringing alarms start shutting off, one by one as their own systems fail._

“ _Thanks,” she says to them, grimly, as the planet rushes up to meet her. “I need to concentrate.”_

_The only thing she can remember after that is coldness and the whirling of stars._

 

Jarett’s body sprawled next to her, half slung over a large boulder, neck bent at an unnatural angle. She didn’t have to check for her pulse to know that the boy was dead. Jess swore, pulled herself up into a sitting position. She tugged the flight helmet from her head and breathed in the fetid air. Not far away, her craft was half sunk in mud. Struggling to her feet, she began to make her way back to it. Jarrett was bigger than she was, and heavier, but perhaps she could find something that would let her bring his body back to base. He deserved that much.

The sound of a blaster froze her in position.

“Do not move.” The voice echoed with a mechanical cadence and Jess tensed. That was a stormtrooper voice. “Turn around.”

“Pick one,” Jess said.

“Turn around.”

A second blaster shot, just over her head. Jess scowled, complying with the order she had been given. Two stormtroopers, mud-splashed, blasters raised.

“Resistance pilot, you will come with us,” said the taller of the two.

“I really won’t,” said Jess and dived behind the rock.

It wasn’t much, and it probably wasn't sensible, but it gave her time to reach her own blaster and she rolled round to the other side, firing almost blind. A satisfyingly heavy thud told her that she had been lucky. She squeezed off a few more shots, then backed up, faster, towards the small shelter of the tree-line. Perhaps from there she would be able to pick off the other and get out of there before reinforcements showed up.

Too late.

A third. A fourth. Blaster fire rang out and with unhurried steps, the patrol began to move forwards. So much for luck. She pressed herself close behind a tree, glancing over at her downed ship. No chance to reach _that_. There was nowhere to go.

“ _Stop.”_

She looked back at the advancing patrol, and her heart nearly cracked. They were still now, clearly waiting for whoever it was now striding forwards, dressed in black, masked, commanding. _The boogeyman_ , Jess thought, and berated herself for her own stupidity. A mask and a cloak didn’t make a man Darth Vader. She held her breath and aimed.

The person in black held up his hands, an incongruous gesture of peace.

Jess let her finger pause on the trigger of her blaster.

“Wait,” the figure said. "She isn't a threat."

Beside him, a flicker of movement from one of the troopers.

Jess fired.

It was dark when she woke again, stars whirling through the sky above her. She sat up, far too fast, head swimming, and groped for her blaster; like the stormtroopers, it was gone. Her legs were cold, wet, half sunk in mud and wate. Her head throbbed. She could feel a burning pain in her left side. But she was alive and she did not know how.

She stayed still, watching, watching, watching for any kind of hint that she wasn’t alone. Nothing. Her legs were beginning to ache and she felt like any moment she would throw up. Still, she breathed slowly, as calmly as she could through the pain in her lungs, and she waited.

It was an hour, more, before she was satisfied. Jess unfurled her limbs, carefully picking up where she had left off before, making slow, agonising steps towards her ship. Her hearing was muffled, nothing changing as she shook her head. As she neared, BB-A3, trapped in place by a tree root, chattered a question at her; without seeing the display, she couldn’t hope to know what it was. Jess pushed against the root, and the droid dropped down, splashing heavily into mud. “This was not a good day,” she told it.

With what felt like every joint in her body protesting at the movement, she stretched one hand out, feet sliding as she got onto her tiptoes, not even bothering to lift the canopy, reaching instead through cracked transparisteel to press a button on her dashboard. The blinking light of a distress beacon she could not remember activating lit her skin in red as she moved.

Something sharp dug into her hip and she fished in the pocket of her flightsuit as she spoke.

“Pava,” she said to the radio. “to base.” There was a crackle of response that she couldn’t quite decipher. “Pava,” she repeated. “To base.”

She glanced down at the object in her hand, at the nondescript grey box that had been so important to her CO.

“One casualty,” she said, though she didn't know if they could hear her at all. “One casualty.”


End file.
